production) comments, it “has a history of directorial manhandling which an audience seeing the play almost seems to expect.” 42 There have been eight RSC productions of the play, including a revival in 1972 of the iconic 1962 production. When Clifford Williams took on the play in 1962, it had not been performed at Stratford for twenty-four years and was not regarded as part of the regular repertoire. Since then, it has been a particular challenge for directors as audiences and critics have gone to see it in the expectation of being delighted, and in the hope of a production even funnier and more inventive than the last. All but one production has been staged at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, exploiting the main house’s technical resources and audience potential.
The World of Ephesus
Dominic Cavendish, in saluting Nancy Meckler’s 2005 production, sums up the play’s conflicting and complementary demands: “What happens … must, on the one hand, not matter a jot—and on the other, touch our deepest-rooted anxieties about who we are, and where we fit in.” 43
The director’s vision and the designer’s realization of it are hardly distinguishable in productions of this play. Each director is looking for a physical context which will exploit the play’s possibilities and all, in one way or another, focus on the strange and slightly threatening atmosphere with which Shakespeare endows his Ephesus:
They say this town is full of cozenage,
As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches that deform the body (1.2.97–100).
1962—“Unmistakeably” an RSC Production
In the second year of Peter Hall’s tenure as artistic director at the RSC, he was faced with a disaster: Paul Scofield, who was to return after fourteen years to play King Lear, fell ill from exhaustion, and Hall was forced to postpone the production with 30,000 tickets already sold. Needing a strong alternative attraction, he took the gamble of giving Clifford Williams three weeks to rehearse a revival of
The Comedy of Errors
, not seen at the RST for twenty-four years. The story of its triumphant success has passed into RSC folklore as “a public validation of the company ideal and an exemplar of the company’s recurring triumph over adversity in the best Dunkirk spirit.” 44 This production, above all, put the RSC’s distinctive stamp on a play for the first time. The highly influential critic Kenneth Tynan, calling it “unmistakeably” an RSC production, went on to say, “The statement is momentous: it means Peter Hall’s troupe has developed, uniquely in Britain, a classical style of its own.” 45 Interestingly, Hall himself is said not to have liked the production. 46
Williams’ production not only established an RSC style but had an enormous influence on theater beyond the RSC. The opening, in which the ensemble, dressed in identical gray boilersuits, walked, with balletic precision, onto a set of three bare platforms, like huge steps, and took up elements of costume to assume their characters, was echoed, in one way and another, in the following years in theaters, churches, and school halls across Britain.
3. In 1962, Clifford Williams’ influential RST production, with Ian Howitson as Dromio of Ephesus, Ian Richardson as Antipholus of Ephesus, Pauline Letts as Emilia, Tony Church as Egeon, Alec McCowen as Antipholus of Syracuse, and Barry MacGregor as Dromio of Syracuse, put the RSC’s distinctive stamp on a play for the first time.
Under Williams’ direction, the play became a sophisticated theatrical charade. The production was fast, sharp, and physical, with a strong commedia dell’arte feel. After the monochrome opening mime, the actors reentered in full costume in strong, bright colors: “Mr Williams gradually adds colour and detail like a painter filling outa canvas.” 47 Although the scenery was minimal (when Ephesian Dromio locked his master out of
The World of Ephesus
Dominic Cavendish, in saluting Nancy Meckler’s 2005 production, sums up the play’s conflicting and complementary demands: “What happens … must, on the one hand, not matter a jot—and on the other, touch our deepest-rooted anxieties about who we are, and where we fit in.” 43
The director’s vision and the designer’s realization of it are hardly distinguishable in productions of this play. Each director is looking for a physical context which will exploit the play’s possibilities and all, in one way or another, focus on the strange and slightly threatening atmosphere with which Shakespeare endows his Ephesus:
They say this town is full of cozenage,
As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches that deform the body (1.2.97–100).
1962—“Unmistakeably” an RSC Production
In the second year of Peter Hall’s tenure as artistic director at the RSC, he was faced with a disaster: Paul Scofield, who was to return after fourteen years to play King Lear, fell ill from exhaustion, and Hall was forced to postpone the production with 30,000 tickets already sold. Needing a strong alternative attraction, he took the gamble of giving Clifford Williams three weeks to rehearse a revival of
The Comedy of Errors
, not seen at the RST for twenty-four years. The story of its triumphant success has passed into RSC folklore as “a public validation of the company ideal and an exemplar of the company’s recurring triumph over adversity in the best Dunkirk spirit.” 44 This production, above all, put the RSC’s distinctive stamp on a play for the first time. The highly influential critic Kenneth Tynan, calling it “unmistakeably” an RSC production, went on to say, “The statement is momentous: it means Peter Hall’s troupe has developed, uniquely in Britain, a classical style of its own.” 45 Interestingly, Hall himself is said not to have liked the production. 46
Williams’ production not only established an RSC style but had an enormous influence on theater beyond the RSC. The opening, in which the ensemble, dressed in identical gray boilersuits, walked, with balletic precision, onto a set of three bare platforms, like huge steps, and took up elements of costume to assume their characters, was echoed, in one way and another, in the following years in theaters, churches, and school halls across Britain.
3. In 1962, Clifford Williams’ influential RST production, with Ian Howitson as Dromio of Ephesus, Ian Richardson as Antipholus of Ephesus, Pauline Letts as Emilia, Tony Church as Egeon, Alec McCowen as Antipholus of Syracuse, and Barry MacGregor as Dromio of Syracuse, put the RSC’s distinctive stamp on a play for the first time.
Under Williams’ direction, the play became a sophisticated theatrical charade. The production was fast, sharp, and physical, with a strong commedia dell’arte feel. After the monochrome opening mime, the actors reentered in full costume in strong, bright colors: “Mr Williams gradually adds colour and detail like a painter filling outa canvas.” 47 Although the scenery was minimal (when Ephesian Dromio locked his master out of
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